


a great fear of shallow living

by Helasdottir



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merfolk, Cryptozoology, M/M, Merman Nines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27747565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helasdottir/pseuds/Helasdottir
Summary: Too big to belong to most brightly-colored reef fish, too bright for most large species of higher-order bony fish, the blue scale taunts him from its place in the open wooden box on his desk. Three months of intensive online research have yielded no concrete results, even Tina – who posed the dare in the first place – is starting to worry about Gavin’s sanity, and he should really be planning classes for the upcoming semester.
Relationships: Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Comments: 7
Kudos: 81
Collections: Reed900 Reverse Big Bang





	a great fear of shallow living

**Author's Note:**

> I am super happy to have taken part in the Reed900 Reverse Big Bang, collaborating with the lovely (and patient!) artist Amnael, who you can find on twitter as @AmnaelJackwell and @AmnyTheWrestler. Go give them love for their breathtaking piece!!

A single fish scale somehow became the center of Gavin’s life. He’s not a marine biologist, he should never have taken the dare to identify the species the damn thing belongs to, but now it’s a matter of pride.

Too big to belong to most brightly-colored reef fish, too bright for most large species of higher-order bony fish, the blue scale taunts him from its place in the open wooden box on his desk. Three months of intensive online research have yielded no concrete results, even Tina – who posed the dare in the first place – is starting to worry about Gavin’s sanity, and he should really be planning classes for the upcoming semester.

Gavin knows he could easily go to a colleague at the university and ask for help, but that would be embarrassing. How can he explain that he’s worked himself to exhaustion over what the cryptozoology club he joined as a joke is deeming potential proof of some mythical ocean creature? Cryptozoology is a joke, he would never be taken seriously.

If there’s any chance to prove the scale came from a regular, realistic fish, Gavin will have to do it by himself. He’s well aware of the impossibility of his self-imposed task, considering the sheer amount of fish that exist, but stubbornness is a flaw as much as it is a virtue.

At the end of the third month, he’s exhausted most online resources. Gavin decides libraries should be his next bet, burying himself behind walls of book and encyclopedias until words start to blend together and he has to call it a day. He borrows some books to take home, returns to the library every chance he gets, and realizes stress headaches might now be his thing.

The two biggest libraries he visits yield no results. There are near-matches, descriptions that are not quite on point, and absolutely no mention of the unnatural shimmer that almost glows in direct light – the only reason Gavin even considered, in a caffeine-induced frenzy, that maybe there _is_ something more out there. Something stranger, something beyond what evolutionary developmental biology can explain. It was the third can of Monster Energy, of course, because this is at most some undiscovered species of tropical fish.

Gavin tries one more large public library before he begins to look for smaller, privately-owned libraries that house the extravagant collections of long-dead rich folk. Tina tells him quitting might be the best option, that there really isn’t any pressure on her dare to identify the scale, but Gavin’s far past doing it for the dare. He wants to prove this isn’t possibly a prehistoric monster or a mermaid, but something entirely within the realm of possibility. He needs to prove it for himself.

The cryptozoology club is impressed with his dedication. Ben, who tried and failed to identify the scale for months before bringing it to Gavin, even gifts him a special blend of Brazilian coffee as thanks for putting in the work to find their cryptid. Of course Gavin is better at researching, the better equipped person for the job: Ben is a retired policeman whose only knowledge of biology comes from his involvement in the search for cryptids, Gavin got his master’s degree in biological sciences with innovative research into mountain lions and jaguar.

Thinking about their qualifications reminds Gavin that he could be spending all this time and energy researching for his goal of getting that PhD in ecology, not searching for a mystery fish in order to prove a point. He could be publishing more papers every year if he put in this effort for work. There are so many better, more productive tasks to spend his time on, and yet he persists.

One of the private libraries he visits is particularly strange. The man who owned the house died in the early 20th century and his family turned the whole estate into a museum, with paintings, artifacts, skeletons and a priceless collection of old books. Gavin doesn’t want to bet on finding anything, mostly because every publication in this place is surely outdated, but it’s not as if modern research has been a friend through this process. He’ll give it a shot.

Another pile of books, another month of stress headaches, and Gavin is only certain of one thing: if he didn’t have a caffeine addiction before this, he certainly does now. It’s the hopelessness of it all that makes him go against his own judgment and pick up an encyclopedia of fantastical beings when he finds it on one of the high shelves. If he can’t find the very real fish the scale belongs to, he might as well read up on what his friends at the cryptozoology club think this thing might be. It’s not as if he expects to find anything.

The encyclopedia is ridiculous, but entertaining. It gives Gavin some distraction from the anxiety he’s caused himself as he laughs at the ludicrous claims that fossilized remains might be proof of the existence of dragons. _Dragons_ , of all things.

There are many hand-drawn illustrations for each of the alleged creatures, images of what they might look like, of each piece of ‘evidence’, and Gavin finds it all very fun until he reaches the chapter on sirens and merfolk. On page 277, drawn and colored, is the damn scale. Cycloid, unnaturally blue, with handwritten annotations claiming it emits some sort of eerie glow.

The creatures the book claims it belongs to is definitely some kind of mermaid, with a long tail and soft fin rays, a humanoid torso, gills on their necks and finned ears. It’s not something Gavin would ever consider believing, but the illustration and description of the scale is absolutely perfect. From the shape to the texture, this ridiculous encyclopedia checks every box, and so Gavin slumps back in his chair and cranes his neck back to stare at the ceiling. Months of work for this, the opposite of what he wanted to prove.

Whoever wrote this likely found the very same kind of scale and extrapolated from it, created the fantasy they wrote into the pages, because it’s not as if this could be true. Something like a mermaid can’t exist, not really – and if it did, it couldn’t possibly stay hidden for so long. Gavin thinks for a moment of old fishermen’s tales, of the birth of these legends, but he scraps the thought before it’s even complete. He’s not about to dive into this illusion.

Taking pictures of the pages with his cellphone, Gavin places the encyclopedia back on the shelf for the last time and goes back to his search, trying in vain to find any other record that might help him. He doesn’t, but it takes him a week to circle back and try to find other works by the author of the compilation of fantastical creatures. He finds nothing.

The last hope he has before surrendering, starting to believe the crazy theories behind cryptozoology and negating all of his academic knowledge, is the librarian and curator of the collection, the grandson of the collection’s original owner. Gavin’s pretty sure the man is between eighty and eight hundred years old, by the look of him, but he also knows everything there is to know about the history of the collection. It’s worth a shot.

Picking the encyclopedia back from the shelf, clutching the wooden box with the scale in his other hand, Gavin walks up to the old man’s little desk and clears his throat to call attention. He feels antsy with a combination of anxiety and the fear of being perceived as one of the people who actually believe this stuff. Not that they’re all bad, he’s found, because the people in the club are really nice, but there is a certain stigma to cryptozoology. He’d know.

“How may I help you?” the old man starts, his voice clearly worn thin by the years. “If you wish to check out that book, I regret to inform you that it is not a possibility. Such antiquities may only be studied in the library.”

“Oh, no, no. I have a really specific problem, I mean, question. I don’t think you’re going to be able to help, but it’s worth a shot, you know?” If Gavin could disappear directly into a tunnel to Hell, he would. He knows how to speak clearly and to the point, but instead he’s dancing around it and making a fool of himself. “Anyway, that’s not the problem. I have an item I need to identify and this book is the only one that shows something like it, but it’s – um – obviously all fantasy. Do you think you could help me find another source that might be more helpful?”

“An item to be identified, hm? I cannot promise to have memorized a specific item from a book, no, but perhaps I can aid you in the identification itself. What might this item be?”

“It’s, excuse me –“ Gavin places the book down on the old man’s desk, handling the wooden box now with two hands and opening it to reveal the mysterious scale, “this. I’ve been trying to find what fish it belongs to for, um, research purposes. I don’t expect you to know wh-“

“You will not find a better source.” It’s a rude interruption, to be sure, but Gavin is mostly taken aback with the security in the old man’s voice. “May I inquire as to the nature of your research?”

For some reason, Gavin feels as if he can’t get out of this question with his usual round of bullshit. It feels as if the curator will know if he lies, will read him like one of these damn old books. He swallows and tries to compose himself before answering.

“Some of my friends think it belongs to mermaids or some old monster of the sea, I want to prove they’re wrong. That’s why this all started, but now I’m just curious and frustrated after months of not finding shit.” The embarrassment burns, but the old man doesn’t seem to be judgmental. Maybe that makes it all worse. “You know when you have a question that doesn’t leave your head and it actually _hurts_? This is that.”

“If this is the sole reason why you’ve returned every day, I see your dedication to the mystery. It may disappoint you to learn that there will be no better answers than what is found in there,” the old man gestures to the book. “Whether you believe its contents or not is an entirely different question.”

Gavin must have tripped in the street and fallen into an alternate dimension where everyone except Tina believes in children’s stories. He hoped to get a normal answer: _sorry, I can’t help you_ would suffice. Now this ancient curator is claiming this scale might actually belong to a real-life mermaid, and Gavin’s not sure if he’s too broken or too exhausted to argue, but he might accept that theory. Maybe.

“Can you be a little less cryptic about it?” His own choice of words has Gavin sighing, his shoulders slumping in defeat. Months of exhausting research wasted on a dead end, on some great public delusion, and now he’s feeding into it. “If you’re trying to tell me mermaids exist, you could at least back it up with something.”

“Young men are so quick to dismiss what is unproven. There is much we, as a collective, have yet to learn.” Pushing his chair back and slowly rising to his feet, the old man waddles past Gavin to retrieve a different book from the shelves. He speaks as he moves, but Gavin still needs to ask himself if reality is in slow motion or if he just drank too much coffee. “Merfolk enjoy their privacy, but they are not hostile to us humans. In fact, they can be quite eager to learn, very friendly if you don’t treat them like test subjects. Now, let me see – no, not this one, _ah_! Yes, good. Where was I? Oh, you should never study another people as if they were specimens in a zoo, you see. So long as you are respectful, they will gladly reveal themselves to you.”

“If they’ve tried to keep themselves secret from the public at large, isn’t telling a complete stranger kind of – I don’t know, dangerous? Disrespectful? For all you know, I could want to mount one of ‘em on the wall.” Gavin’s not exactly accepting this, not yet. He’s going along with it, testing the way it makes him feel, picturing the disgrace of these considerations making their way to his boss. “I don’t, for the record.”

“Hm. Let an old man be foolish and place his trust in the new generations. I don’t believe you would intentionally harm these wonderful beings, nor was I forbidden to speak of them.” The new book hits the old man’s desk with a soft thud. Without circling back around to his chair, the curator opens it and mutters to himself as he tries to find something. “Here. This is my grandfather’s travel diary; you will find more information on the location of the merfolk he encountered in here.”

“The merfolk he – yeah. Okay, thank you.” Gavin wishes he could, in good consciousness, let out the string of curses he’s been thinking of since the beginning of this new existential crisis. It might scare the old man into a heart attack, or at least spoil some of the favor he’s garnered by being studious and intense, so instead he just leans over the book to inspect the italicized cursive handwriting of the long-dead eccentric traveler.

Sure enough, the man claims to have swum with the beings portrayed in the other book: he describes them the very same way, remarks on the near-glow of their scales, and then goes into discussing their culture and way of life. Gavin hopes that if this is all a dream, he’ll wake up before making a ridiculously expensive decision, because there are coordinates written into the diary.

“I still think this is bonkers, but can I take a photo of this page? I don’t know that I’ll believe a word of this until I see it myself.”

“Go ahead. I would advise you to read the diary itself if you are to make the trip to see them.” Seeming content with his revelation, which still seems entirely surreal to Gavin, the old man rounds the desk and sits back down to fiddle with his watch. “His experiences may be outdated, but they are better than having no frame of reference.”

“Yeah. I think I will. Look, even if I’m still very much skeptical of all this, I wanna thank you. I wouldn’t’ve thought of looking for anything like this, and a lead is a lead.”

“It is always a pleasure to welcome someone new into the veil,” the old man says, and that must mean _something_. Gavin doesn’t want to ask. He closes the encyclopedia and the diary and, with the small wooden box still in hand, carries them both back to the table where he was sitting to read.

The diary is harder to read, stained in some places, blurry in others. Many words are crossed out and rewritten where mistakes were made, and the whole thing being written in cursive is not helpful. Gavin still pours hours into analyzing it, reading cover to cover and then going back to the important bits to be sure.

Using his phone as a camera, he photographs the coordinates and the other pages concerning these merfolk, as well as the encyclopedia page with the illustrations. By the time he’s ready to go home, his left eye has begun twitching from a combination of stress and exhaustion. Gavin falls into bed without even removing his jeans, losing himself in dreams of sailors and sirens.

Feeling simultaneously more and less rested than he has in the past months, Gavin uses his Sunday morning to look up the coordinates and find out if travel is even an option. He can’t buy tickets now, not without saving some money and getting time off from the university, but the idea of a summer vacation to a tropical island – which is what the coordinates are for – doesn’t sound half bad. At best, he discovers mermaids are real and shatters his perception of reality for good. At worst, he gets to lounge on the beach drinking coconut water until his skin turns red from the sun.

The tricky part is explaining all of this to Tina without sounding like he’s completely lost his mind. She’s always been steady and supportive even of his dumbest ideas, but her needling about the cryptozoology thing makes him think she won’t blindly accept this change of tone. Gavin knows that if their roles were reversed, he’d be an absolute ass about it.

In the end, he comes to the conclusion that the easiest way to solve his problem is to avoid telling her the full truth. He’s found a lead on the animal the scale belongs to and is going to take his summer vacation in a tropical island in hopes the locals may help him identify it. It’s not a lie, not exactly, and she gets to soothe her worries about his mental state.

Mind made up, Gavin feels the rest of the semester inch by at a glacial pace. He has too many classes, too many lectures, far too many one-on-one conversations with students who can’t possibly imagine that his entire worldview is fraying at the seams. The days grow hotter and his anticipation ramps up by the day. It’s a mixed feeling, bursting with childlike excitement on one end, boiling his insides in a pit of nervous acid on the other.

The moment Gavin is free for the summer, he’s on a plane out of the country. The supposedly magical island is somewhere above Fiji, so that’s his first stop. From there, he takes a privately chartered plane to the small and sparsely populated island of Thunni. There are no cities on the island, only temporary accommodations for tourists and visiting scientists, so that’s where Gavin settles for his stay.

He’s never been to one of these remote places where sunscreen is banned so the nature isn’t contaminated. That, combined with the crystalline waters and vast white sands, makes Gavin feel awfully bougie. Once his bags are piled up beside the temporary bed and he gets to take a walk outside, he even forgets about mermaids for a moment in order to take in the sheer beauty of the place.

There’s a magically calming element to the small waves crashing rhythmically into the sand, the line of foam left behind every time the water retreats, the line of sunlight reflected on the surface. It’s so far removed from the pollution and noise of the big city, so distant from Gavin’s reality, that he wonders if he’s just never had a clear view of the world.

There are few others staying in the temporary accommodations, some now seating themselves by the outdoor restaurant that provides for the small excursions and the few people who choose to live here. Gavin could definitely use a meal with more quality than shitty airplane food, but right now hunger feels like a distant problem, far beneath the ephemeral sensation of being in paradise. God, he’s such a fucking tourist.

It’s not a lie that the calm beauty of this place has stolen away his sense of urgency. He walks calmly along the beach, sinking his toes into damp sand, feeling his ankles itch with salt every time the water splashes against him and retreats. There’s no hurry to get anywhere. He could immediately press the locals for answers on the scale, try to find his answer _right now_ , but that would ruin the mood. He wants to walk, to breathe, to smell the oddly satisfying sea mist and watch the sun set over the horizon.

Of course, he’s not going to lose his big city ways quite so quickly, so he uses his phone to photograph the pink sky behind the nearly lilac clouds, the ghost crabs scuttling along the sand, the vegetation and every little animal he encounters. When he walks far enough from the lodgings, a deep-set loneliness crawls its way into his chest, a sense of insignificance and solitude amplified by the greatness of his surroundings. He wants to share this with Tina, with Chris, with anyone who could sit on the sand with him and lift his spirits.

Finding a nice, cool spot by some seaside rocks, Gavin settles down and reaches for the box in his pocket. He opens it and looks at the scale, which seems somehow brighter, more beautiful in the dim light of the evening. He takes it in hand and runs his fingers over the delicate, smooth ridges that make up the shell-like scale, and glances back up into the sea.

He does a double take almost immediately, because there’s something new in the way of the horizon. An island, apparently small and rocky, now silhouetted by the backlight provided by the descending sun. He’s entirely sure there was no island there a moment ago, that he’s not _that_ distracted.

As a test, Gavin places the scale back inside the box, keeping his eyes focused directly ahead. The island vanishes. He picks it back up, and it reappears. His breath catches in his throat. _Shit_. _Holy shit_.

No amount of doubting his sanity could justify the very real, very clear image before his eyes. It could be a hallucination, of course, but Gavin knows it’s not. He knows it has to be something else – magic, if you will – and he’s not sure why he’s so sure. It makes his eyes well up with tears.

Running his thumb slowly over the scale, Gavin leaves the box on the sand as he stands and takes enough steps forward that he feels the water licking at his knees. The island isn’t far, it might even be within swimming distance, but he knows not to risk it. Ocean currents are not trustworthy, they could drag him far past the land. He still wants to try.

The sun disappears entirely before Gavin finds the will to move, to walk back towards the lodgings and buy himself some food. The pepper crab server is absolutely delicious, but his focus is still on the island, still on the possibility of all those tales being real. Merfolk. Who would have thought?

Perhaps the island is the best way to approach the locals, now that he thinks of it. If they can see it and they know he can see it, assuming no one else can, they may trust him with more information. Maybe a boat ride over, if he’s lucky.

He chooses to wait until the next day, until morning, to try his luck. It’s a mostly sleepless night on the softer-than-normal beds, interspaced with dreams of beautiful serpent-like beings welcoming him into their sanctuary.

After breakfast, with Gavin still floating above his own reality in the daze of his realization, he asks one of the guides about Thunni’s disappearing sister island. The man seems surprised at his question until Gavin shows him the scale, and then his face softens into a bright smile.

“You wish to see the Arkays,” he says, and Gavin nods – he doesn’t know what an Arkay is, but he hopes it’s their word for mermaid. “I will arrange a boat for this afternoon. Please have a gift ready, the local Arkays are immensely fond of friendly exchanges.”

“A gift. Got it, I’ll have it ready.” Gavin fidgets, rubbing his fingers together, then smiles crookedly and resists the urge to duck his head. He’s brimming with excitement, with this new feeling – is it happiness? – and there are no words to properly describe how far removed he feels from himself only days before. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

At first, Gavin’s excitement is so much he thinks he may not be able to eat. Then, at lunch, he feels so famished he orders two meals instead of one, scarfing them down with the elegance of a drunk man eating a cheeseburger.

The guide comes back for him at two in the afternoon, but it feels as if a whole day has gone by. They needed to wait until the other tourists were otherwise occupied, most sleeping off their lunch before getting back to the water, to safely make their way to the island. Gavin only barely remembers to bring a gift: he chooses one of the books he checked out of a (normal, public) library, because it’s not as if a future library fine is more important than meeting real-life merfolk.

He can see them in the water when they steer close enough to the smaller island. At first they are only submerged shapes, white flashes swimming by under the waves, but then he sees a group playing by the sand and a lone man – merman – draped over a rock by the shore. Reality has never felt so much like a dream, and yet Gavin doesn’t doubt what he’s seeing, not for a moment.

Pulling up onto the beach, Gavin hops off the boat and shivers as the cold water covers his calves. He follows the guide’s lead, holding the scale in one hand and the book in the other, as they approach the merman on the large flat rock. His skin is nearly as white as his tail, and the blue that frames his fins and body is that very same bright, near glowing blue of the scale in Gavin’s hand. Once they’re close enough to see detail, Gavin realizes that his eyes are the same crystal blue.

“Greetings, Nines. I bring a visitor from America, one who comes to share gifts. Mr. Gavin, this is Nines Arkay, ambassador of the island.”

“Thank you, Seru.” The merman, Nines, raises himself onto both arms before he sits up. His tail moves slowly, dragging along behind him, partially in the water. It’s definitely serpentine in shape, long and more beautiful than any mermaid cartoon Gavin saw as a child.

“Uh, hey. Hi. I mean, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Gavin wants to extend a hand for Nines to shake, but that feels awfully inadequate. Insufficient. How could such a breathtaking being lower itself to shaking Gavin’s hand? Not to mention both his hands are currently occupied. He wants Seru to say something, to guide the conversation, but the man is clearly giving him free range of this interaction. “You can just call me Gavin. I, um, didn’t know you were real. Sorry if I’m awkward about it.”

“Gavin. It is, as you say, a pleasure.” Still moving in his serpentine fashion, Nines brings his tail to coil around the rock, its tip swaying gently with the movement of the water. “How have you come by our gift?”

“Your – the book?”

“No, our gift.” Nines moves a hand – which Gavin only now realizes is webbed with the same beautiful blue tones between his fingers – and indicates the scale he’s still clutching.

“Oh. Oh, this. One of my friends was trying to figure out what kind of scale this was. He’s in a – well, we’re in a cryptozoology club, looking for magical creatures and such. Not that I’m here to research you. I just didn’t believe you were real, and then I saw the island, and now I can’t really doubt it. Uh. I was curious. But yeah, my friend gave this to me.”

“You do not need to worry so much about appearances. What have you brought for me?”

“It’s a book about volcanoes,” Gavin answers, and feels awfully ridiculous for it. He would feel worse if Nines’s expression didn’t pick up interest, eyebrows rising slightly as he extends his hand to take the book. Gavin gladly hands it over. “I don’t know if it’s the sort of knowledge you like to exchange, or – you know, now that I think of it, where are you even going to store a book? Shit. It’s going to get wet and ruined and I really should have thought of a better gift.”

Gavin desperately wants to look to Seru for help, but the guide has already wandered off to engage in conversation with two mermaids who seemed to be drying seaweed on the rocks.

“Do not trouble yourself, Gavin. A book is a perfectly adequate gift, and not the first we have received. Our existence is not entirely confined to the water.” Gavin wants to ask what that means, if they slither on land like actual snakes, but then he sees someone running past in the distance. They’re definitely not human, with gills and fins for ears, but they have _legs_. “You are confused, I see. Shapeshifting is one of our abilities, although we can only remain on land for limited periods of time. It is… uncomfortable, to say the least.”

“Oh. Didn’t mean to assume. So, you, um. I don’t know what to say, if I’m being honest, because I’ve never met a mermaid before. Merman. Mer-person?” It’s the embarrassment, not the hot sun, that colors Gavin’s cheeks pink. He feels only slightly relieved when Nines laughs, a deep and rich sound that is more endearment than mockery. “I don’t want to be offensive or ask weird questions, you know?”

“I can only imagine what it is like to discover beings so alike and yet different from yourself.” Nines coils his tail upwards, pulling it entirely from the water, and Gavin gasps as he watches a shift occur: first the tail grows shorter, whiter, and then it disappears into long legs and what is most definitely a very naked merman. “Please, come with me.”

Nines slides effortlessly from the rock and walks up onto the sand. Gavin does his best not to stare, because the last thing he needs to do is become known as a pervert among goddamn mermaids, and he follows close behind. They walk up into the vegetation and Nines leads him to a small hut, where bookshelves and trinkets cover the whole interior. Gifts. It’s clearly an extensive collection, with brand new novels stacked beside ancient leather-bound tomes, old oil lamps with cellphones and radios, the Arkay’s own little human museum.

“Our people are not fond of the idea of becoming a spectacle for the humans, that is the reason for your charms on this island. However, we do enjoy the interactions with friendly outsiders, and learning about the world outside these waters.” Nines sorts through books on a shelf, his webbed fingers somehow more inhuman now that he appears more humanoid, and finds a place to put Gavin’s gift. “I cannot fault you for curiosity when we are much the same way. You may ask your questions.”

“Don’t you want to get back to the water? You said this was uncomfortable, and I don’t want you thinking you’ve gotta look human for my sake. I’m cool with sitting on a rock.”

Nines smiles and inclines his head slightly, as if mulling over his words, then hums in agreement. “Perhaps you are right. Come, let us enjoy the sunlight and speak as friends.”

A bubble of excitement seems to pop in Gavin’s chest when he gets referred to as a friend. Nines seems so ethereal, so magical, that it’s an honor to be considered anything more than a guest. Gavin can feel the bounce in his step as they walk back towards the water, with Nines submerging himself in order to shift back to his true form while Gavin finds a comfortable rock to sit on.

Surfacing once more, now with his long tail stretched out behind him in the water, Nines seems somehow more beautiful than before. He leans against the side of the rock Gavin’s chosen and they talk: first about home, in Detroit, about what Gavin’s daily life is like, and then about the tales of merfolk in the book he found, the differences a century has made to their people. They talk about Nines himself, how he rose to the title of ambassador because his older brother decided to travel to colder waters with a selkie (which Gavin chooses not to unpack at this very moment), how he grew up awed by humanity but protective of his people.

Before Gavin knows it, the light has turned reddish again. He’s spent the whole afternoon talking to Nines, and now Seru has come to call for him. They need to make the trip back before nightfall, so he can navigate past the rocks in the channel between the islands. Gavin really, truly doesn’t want to go.

That’s when Nines, seeing the disappointment in Gavin’s face at the prospect of leaving this beautiful little sheltered world, rests a hand on his bare knee and shakes his head.

“Go on without him, Seru. Gavin will be my personal guest for this night, or as long as he wishes to stay.”

Oh. So the mermaid king (which is what _ambassador_ seems to mean in this place) likes him. That absolutely does not make Gavin’s stomach flip with delight, the butterflies of a teenage crush flutte3ring inside him. No one back home would ever believe this.

Nines sets Gavin up on a straw bed for the night, and it’s not really comfortable, but he still sleeps like a baby. The next morning should feel surreal, unnatural, but Gavin has never felt more at peace than when he walks out to find Nines has built a fire and set out fresh fish for him. Apparently one of the gifts they received was a set of spices, so his food does not go unseasoned.

In humanoid form, Nines walks him around the entirety of the small island, showing him the terrifying coconut crabs that can climb trees, the beautifully colored birds, and the rock pools on the other end where Nines’s people take shelter from the waves to sleep.

Gavin enjoys the afternoon much more, though, when he gets to shed his shirt and jump into the water, swimming around with several curious merfolk, splashing with Nines and pathetically losing a race he knew he was no match for. Over the course of the day, Nines’s smiles turn from reserved and host-like to genuinely bright, affectionate. Gavin tells himself not to fall for the mermaid king who lives half a world away, but he doubts he can avoid it.

Before Seru comes to retrieve him that evening, Gavin hands his scale over to Nines, who uses a thin metal tool over the heat of their fire to drill a hole into it. He strings hand-woven thread through the hole and hands Gavin a necklace, a way for him to always see their island – hands free.

It’s ridiculous that only a day has gone by. Gavin sees the boat leaving the opposite shore and runs back into the water, quickly followed by a shifting Nines, and submerges himself entirely in the cool waters. When he surfaces, Nines is close – very close, tail coiled around him, cool and slippery against Gavin’s legs. “Oh.”

“Oh,” Nines echoes, moving a hand to Gavin’s shoulder. His skin is soft and cool, his touch tentative, and Gavin wonders how he’s possibly going to leave this behind. “I apologize for my forwardness, Gavin, but you are unlike other humans I have met. I feel disinclined to let you leave.”

“I have no clean clothes here,” Gavin argues weakly. He can’t exactly live the rest of his life with one old shirt and one pair of shorts. “I’ve got another ten days; I can come back.”

“And after that? Detroit, teaching biology?” Nines asks, not accusatory, his fingers tracing the line up to Gavin’s neck. “You could stay.”

“I – I’m not a citizen, I’ve got no documents here, that probably wouldn’t work.” Gavin swallows, shivers at the touch and leans back into the merman. “I wish I could. Shit. I only realized what it feels like to be calm, to be happy, in the last two days. In the city we’re always rushing to get somewhere, do something, but here you can just… be.”

“Your life does seem hectic.” Nines seems somehow closer when he speaks, his breath warming Gavin’s ear. “Here you would have food, shelter, and access to both islands. You do not have to worry about documentation or other human rules, not so long as the veil shrouds you.”

“Nines,” Gavin says softly, closing his eyes. He wants to accept so badly, but back home… back home he has Tina, he has a job, he has a whole life he’d abandon. And oh, he would definitely abandon it, even if he’d miss his friends. “Can I think about it?”

“Of course.” Taking the necklace made specifically for Gavin, Nines presses it into his hand, holding it closed. “Just know I would be honored to have you here, as a guest, and… more, if you wish.”

“Do your kind always rush into these things?”

“Hm. When the feeling is present, I suppose we do. Humans have far too complex mating rituals, we enjoy the simplicity of knowing what we want and proposing it.”

“Oh. Oh, that makes sense. You want me as your mate, then?”

“Yes, Gavin.”

“Fuckin’ hell. You make it hard for a man to leave.”

Nines laughs softly and moves his hand into Gavin’s hair, pulling him close. Seru is coming with his boat, passing by them to land on the beach, and Gavin takes a deep breath and allows himself to relax fully. He feels Nines’s tail moving over his legs, embracing him, and thinks that maybe he could abandon the city for this. Maybe this is better.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on twitter @xhelasdottir.


End file.
